I don't want to turn this into a "bash Kidd" thread. He's a great player. Yes, he's a selfish prima donna, but in most cases that's necessary to BE a great NBA player--you need to be cocky and self absorbed, even arrogant. See, for instance, James, LeBron. Obviously that statement is overbroad and not true in all cases, but it's interesting that some players that lack that arrogance are criticised for not having a "killer instinct" and "winner's mentality"--like Vince, for instance.
However, on top of that, I just don't think that Jason Kidd is much of a leader. Although he helps his teammates play better on the court, he doesn't help them play HARDER consistently. Even before this year, it seemed like he would go entire quarters, halves, even games where he would just go through the motions--and his teammates would then do the same. He'd talk about how the team "took the game off," but I see him as one of the primary culprits for that. There's no question that when he is focused and driven, he can be a dominant player. But can he still do that for a three-month stretch? We haven't seen it.
I understand that you are just thrilled with geting Kidd on your favorite team. But if he is so great, and such a leader, why have the Nets been a .500 team for the last two years? Why are they five or eight games under .500 this year? It's easy to blame injuries, or the talent level of the players on the team, but other teams have injuries and can still win if they have leaders--look at Washington this year, for instance, or Houston last year when Yao was injured. If Kidd was such a great leader, why had he become a cancer in the locker room? Why was he getting to the foul line the fewest number of times in his career? Why is he taking the fewest shots in his career, with the lowest field goal percentage? Either he is proving that he is not a leader, or his skills ahev declined. There is no other possible answer. A leader LEADS, he doesn't go through the motions or is satisfied with a half-assed effort.
Who is the real Jason Kidd? I don't know. As I said earlier, I suspect that, like has happened with each team he has been on, he'll be focused and play well for the rest of this year and probably next year, but after that you'll start to see him take games off and come up with some random excuse about how "it wasn't their game." Ask yourself if Kevin Garnett or Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan would do that.
In this case, as was confirmed in an article today, Kidd decided he wanted to be traded over a year ago and just didn't want to play for the Nets any more, which is a damning statement, and insulting to both his teammates and the organization. At first, Kidd said that he wanted to play with an athletic big man who could finish--and now the Nets have THREE of them, so that wasn't the problem. I SUSPECT--although don't know for sure--that he just wanted to get away because of things that were going on in his personal life, but we'll never know for sure.
Kidd right now is half a player. His defense is overrated--on yesterday's Orlando Magic broadcast they mentioned how much Jameer Nelson--JAMEER NELSON, THE WORST STARTING PG IN THE LEAGUE--will miss Kidd, because Kidd couldn't contain him. He doesn't shoot, and when he does take a shot, there is a 2/3 chance he'll miss, anyway. He doesn't get to the line. His rebounds are overrated, because 90% of them are on the defensive end, and if he didn't get them, there's around an 85% chance that one of his teammates would. In other words, I figure he adds at most around one rebound per game over a lineup with a typically-rebounding PG. All that's left is his passing ability, and I'm not sure how much that's worth in comparison to those other skills. It's possible that all those skills will improve now that he's focused--he definitely has been getting more steals than before, so it seems like his intensity is up--but that just brings us back to the leadership issue.
Anyway, just to finish, Jason was a great player for the Nets, and I loved to watch him--but I hated to root for him, because, as I said at the start of this, he's a selfish prima donna who resorts to sleazy behavior at times--lying about making a trade demand, pressuring the front office to make certain moves, and the personal stuff like the allegations in the divorce proceeding and the allegation that he groped a woman at a bar.
If you can ignore all that, all the more power to you, and you'll enjoy watching him play even more. I prefer to root for nice, introspective guys. Like Antoine Wright, who was one of my favorite players, even though he was terrified whenever he had the ball in his hands.
